The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
By now, I think you’ve all heard the news that Harry Reid will not be getting an endorsement from NRA this election cycle. They didn’t come straight out and say it, but it appears the Sotomayor and Kagan votes are being graded heavily.
It would have been hard to defend an endorsement after the Kagan vote. NRA detractors certainly would have made that argument and they would have had a good point.
There was this somewhat stunning announcement from Chris Cox on the NRA’s Political Victory Fund site this afternoon:
Friday, August 27, 2010 In the coming days and weeks, the NRA Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) will be announcing endorsements and candidate ratings in hundreds of federal races, as well as thousands of state legislative races. Unless these announcements are required by the timing of primary or special elections, the NRA-PVF generally does not issue endorsements while important legislative business is pending. The NRA-PVF also operates under a long-standing policy that gives preference to incumbent candidates who have voted with the NRA on key issues, which is explained in more detail here.The U.S. Senate recently considered a number of issues important to NRA members, including the confirmation of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. Out of respect for the confirmation process, the NRA did not announce its position on Ms. Kagan’s confirmation until the conclusion of her testimony before the Senate Judiciary committee. Her evasive testimony exacerbated grave concerns we had about her long-standing hostility towards the Second Amendment. As a result, the NRA strongly opposed her confirmation and made it clear at the time that we would be scoring this important vote.
The vote on Elena Kagan’s confirmation to the Court, along with the previous year’s confirmation vote on Sonia Sotomayor, are critical for the future of the Second Amendment. After careful consideration, the NRA-PVF announced today that it will not be endorsing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for re-election in the 2010 U.S. Senate race in Nevada.
NRA members and other interested parties are encouraged to visit www.NRAPVF.org for more information as Election Day draws near.
Given that the NRA’s Chris Cox and Wayne LaPierre are about as Washington Insider as it comes, the non-endorsement of Reid is recognition of two things in my opinion. First, the membership would rise up in protest if Harry Reid were to be endorsed. Second, the tide against the status quo is so strong that those who get in its way will be wiped out. Just ask Republican incumbents like Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah, Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina, and quite probably after all is said and done, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
PS: While Bitter and Sebastian are on vacation in Hawaii, I will be one of the guest bloggers in their absence. As my blog, No Lawyers – Only Guns and Money is quite new, I feel truly honored to be asked. I will do my best to keep up the standards that they have established.
Chris Dolnack of NSSF is reporting that the EPA has denied the petition by the Center for BioDivesity. We are a force to be reckoned with, and it appears that the Obama Administration is still afraid to tangle with us.
Over at SayUncle. Looks like they are lend lease rifles, and the reason Korea can’t sell them is because they don’t own them. They can be returned to the United States, where they would be turned over to the CMP to be sold. Sounds like a happy ending to me.
CeaseFirePA are such a cheery bunch, telling we lawful gun owners how every time I pull the trigger, a kitten dies, or something like that. Now they are angry at Pat Toomey, who made the old joke that he thinks gun control is steady aim, and are claiming it shows he’s insensitive to victims of gun violence.
Because we all know the way you respect victims of gun violence is to support gun control. Locking up criminals who perpetrate gun violence? Can’t have that. But passing a Lost and Stolen ordinance will surely do the trick!
Tam’s got a snippet from a New York Times column that tries to show how it was those evil Republicans who wanted to keep us women barefoot and pregnant – or at least out of the voting booth. I assume that the author’s access to the NYT archives must have been down the day he wrote that because I found a handy NYT article that shows it was the Republicans who finally got the 19th amendment moving.
In fact, it was the Democrats who seemed to provide the main opposition to the amendment. Out of 44 Republicans, 36 (82%) voted for it. Of the 37 Democrats, 17 (46%) voted against it. In the House vote, 200 Republicans (92%) voted for it and 70 Democrats (41%) voted against it.
A discussion between Ted Novin and Larry Keane of NSSF:
The Black Bear Blog thinks not, largely because the TSCA exempts any product subject to the Internal Revenue Code, which ammunition is among. I’ve also skimmed the Toxic Substances Control Act a bit, and it’s hard to see how it grants authority to ban lead ammunition. Certainly they could put a lot of requirements on manufacturers, but based on my cursory examination, I’m not sure the authority is there at all. But I did not examine the law in great detail.
Thanks to Camo Underground for the pointer.
SayUncle reports on how companies that he’s worked for have saved significant money moving their operations out of California. This is certainly not going to help to restore California’s slumping housing prices. California is still the home for high-tech jobs, however, but one thing (other than their crappy gun laws) that’s prevented me from moving there is the fact that housing was unaffordable, and the salary differential was never high enough to justify the wildly inflated cost of living. I’ve never understood why tech jobs aren’t fleeing California by the busload and headed for greener pastures, like Austin.
Philip Mulivor in Ohio explains why the Second Amendment is his single issue. Sounds like a persuasive reason to me.